To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. November 25, 1947
Just a calendar month from today will be Christmas, and I send you this letter by air mail, as you all do in America, because I wish it to reach you before Bob’s wedding and before you receive from Scribner’s in New York a Christmas present that I have asked them to send you. This, like the air postage, you know is exceptional with me. Dates have nothing to do with my philosophy and hardly with my life or letters; and although in subterranean ways I give away a good deal of money, I dislike the fuss of sending, choosing, and being thanked for small occasional favours. But I have for a long time been gathering a sort of sense of guilt in receiving so many parcels from you, and giving practically nothing in return. The attention on your part may reward itself by the interest and fun that goes with doing kind things, but I am troubled about causing you constant small expenses when I understand that your income is limited, whereas I don’t spend half of mine.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA